Vacuum packagers have been used to seal a variety of products. Typical examples include stand-alone clamshell vacuum bag sealers, linear clamshell vacuum bag sealers and rotary clamshell vacuum bag sealers. Such vacuum packages generate a negative pressure within a bagged product that is inside, for example, a clamshell or platen with a dome chamber. The bag is then heat-sealed closed while under the generated vacuum.
Producing vacuum energy with conventional vacuum packagers is very expensive and evacuation of the bag-sealing chamber is very time consuming even with relatively large vacuum pumps. This leads to slower throughput capabilities per machine. In addition, vacuum packagers are currently very large and slow and are not generally cost effective for many packaging applications. Finally, the vacuum packagers generally do not efficiently compress the packaging tightly around the packaged product.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved packager and sealer that efficiently and securely packages various products. There is a further need for a packager adapted for sealing fresh meat products.